I fade. Letting the darkness and pain pull me into a foggy place where pain doesn’t exist.
I vaguely hear footsteps running toward me. Voices shouting in Russian I don't understand surround me. Hands on me, gentle but urgent, checking for injuries.
"The baby," I whisper as hands lift me onto a gurney. "Please, check the baby."
"Miss, what baby? Are you?—"
"I'm pregnant." The words tumble out, desperate. "About eleven weeks. Please, I fell down the stairs, I need to know if?—"
"Okay, okay." The nurse's voice shifts to calm professionalism. "We'll check. Try to stay still."
The drive to the hospital is a blur of pain and panic. Alexei sits beside me, pressing a towel to the cut on my head, his expression troubled.
"You're pregnant?" he asks quietly, low enough that the driver won't hear.
I close my eyes. The secret I've been carrying for weeks is finally out—to the worst possible person. "Yes."
"How long have you known?"
"Since before he brought me to the estate."
Alexei is silent for a long moment. "Does Dante know?"
"No." I grab his arm, panic cutting through the pain. "And you can't tell him. Promise me, Alexei. Promise me you won't say anything."
"Hannah, he has a right?—"
"Promise me!" My voice cracks. "I'll tell him myself. When I'm ready. But it has to come from me, not—please. I'm begging you."
His jaw tightens, and I can see him wrestling with competing loyalties. Dante is his brother in everything but blood. Keeping this secret goes against everything he believes in.
"I won't volunteer the information," he finally says. "But if he asks me directly, I won't lie to him."
"That's all I'm asking."
The hospital is a blur of bright lights and urgent voices. They whisk me away from Alexei, into an exam room where a doctor with kind eyes asks questions I answer on autopilot.
"The baby," I keep saying. "Please, I need to know about the baby."
"We're going to check right now." She's setting up an ultrasound machine, her movements efficient and calm. "Try to relax. Stress isn't good for either of you."
Relax. Right. I'm being held captive by the father of my unborn child, I just fell down a flight of stairs, and any minute now Dante might burst through that door and discover the secret I've been keeping for weeks.
Relaxation isn't really in the cards.
The ultrasound gel is cold against my belly. The doctor moves the wand with practiced pressure, her eyes on the screen.
The silence stretches. I can't breathe. Can't think past the terror that I've killed my baby through my own carelessness.
Then I hear it.
Fast, fierce, impossibly loud—a heartbeat that doesn't belong to me.
"There we go," the doctor says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. "Strong heartbeat, measuring right on track. Your baby is just fine, Hannah."
The relief is so intense I burst into tears.
"I thought—when I fell?—"
